


isolated or not.

by Glossolalia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Comfort/Angst, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:40:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glossolalia/pseuds/Glossolalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance finds himself on Death's doorstep as a means to protect Keith, and Keith has no choice but to be honest with his teammate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	isolated or not.

**i.**

It began on a ledge and with a thought.

 _Trapped_ , Keith remembered, a stream of blood draining from his temple, hot and sticky along his throat. _I'm trapped and going to die._

He glanced over his shoulder and heard the ear-splitting screech that'd been chasing him for what was beginning to feel like miles. Keith darted his gaze back to the forty-foot drop before him, and his stomach clenched as he bit through fear. Rainbow quartz stalagmites reached for his person and the ground rumbled beneath the weight of the oncoming beast. He stepped back when the tip of said ledge started to crumble, and he clenched his teeth.

Keith thought to speak into the helmet's broken receiver. He mouthed the name he wanted to yell but stopped himself.

Death was an option, but it wasn't in the plan.

Keith sharply sucked in a breath and leapt.

 

**ii.**

The planet was called Tinuw. Upon approaching, the first thing the Paladins observed was its sublime expanse. What initially looked to be an ocean of sapphires wavering through its own facets proved to be nothing more than a frozen wasteland. The purpose of landing there was to hunt a mythic artifact in order to negotiate freedom for an oppressed neighboring planet.

The planet's commune of boulder-shaped people had been kind enough to replenish their food and entertain them. Hunk, being Hunk, pointed out saving their species was the least they could do. Allura, though for once hesitant, promptly agreed and reminded the Paladins about the severe code of ethics. It wouldn't have been the first time they prevented extinction, anyway.

"Why're we such good people?" Lance asked while barreling his lion toward the planet.

"Something about _defenders of the universe_ , probably," Pidge said.

Hunk had laughed. 

When they dismounted their lions and stepped into Tinuw's whirling snow, the Paladin's thoughtlessly assumed nothing could survive its surface. Its wind chill penetrated bone marrow, within seconds Keith's arms had grown stiff, and even Shiro flinched against the hardest gusts. Without missing a beat, Lance pointed out they were probably in hell. No one disagreed.

It was supposed to be devoid of life, and for the most part, it was. There were no villages or communities hidden away in the crystalline ice caverns, and the sheer lack of civilization somehow left the planet feeling haunted. Even when the distant avalanches hit, there was something about the deep rumble that was left void of feeling.

Until one of the avalanches manifested beneath their feet.

Keith remembered looking to Lance as he and the Blue Paladin scrambled for any kind of anchor. The anchor ended up being a tilted, slippery edge that was impossible to climb. It was only instinct for Keith to launch himself at Lance, hand grappling for the other's as he yelled and watched Lance plummet toward what looked like a death drop.

Keith's scream for Lance was overpowered by the screams from everyone else as they fell into divided caverns. There was panic, separate dead thuds and then radio silence.

Again, the planet was supposed to be lifeless. Not even their sensors had picked up life.

Keith guessed mammoth ice worms with pinchers reminiscent of centipedes' weren't much of a life form.

 

**iii.**

He remembered that leap, landing on his knees and skidding toward an iced wall until it stopped him with a graceless _smack_. He'd underestimated how high the leap was, but in the end, the pain in his legs didn't matter if he was alive.

The worm's scream made Keith slap his hands against both sides of his helmet as if it'd help muffle the bloodcurdling noise. Thinking he was safe, Keith pressed his forehead against the blue ground and raggedly caught his breath. He attempted to contact the other Paladins by speaking into the mouthpiece, but it was all dead static. His connection was severed.

"Shiro, Lance," he tried again. "Hunk, Pidge?"

It was fruitless.

"Fuck," he hissed and slammed his palms down. " _Fuck_."

The world began to fog over. After blinking, Keith realized his visor was accumulating frost. Air like dry ice surrounded him in tiny wafts, and Keith shuddered at the sudden dip in temperature. It was even worse than before, and he could feel his blood freezing.

Slowly, Keith turned his head. He watched in disbelief as the worm extended itself across the gap. The pinchers reached for him, dripping cerulean acid, and Keith clambered closer to the wall. He shucked free his his Bayard but doubt overwhelmed him.

He reminded himself that he'd fought Zarkon, that he would be fine, but he also had more outs when fighting the emperor. In this, he was trapped.

"Hey, you inbred popsicle!"

Lance's voice shot across the cavern like a bullet. The sharp ping of his Bayard's gun came to life, and Keith exhaled as he shifted to avoid it. Its laser nailed the back of the worm's head once and then twice, and Keith flinched when the worm swung itself around with enough kinetic energy to cause the cavern to tremble. Ice fell from the ceiling, and Keith's eyes darted as he looked for a way across to help Lance. The worm was too big for him to take on alone.

Keith spotted a slippery series of jutting rocks that lead from around the cavern to the side Lance as fighting on. He groaned at the impossibility of the climb, but he stepped over to cautiously begin.

Overhead, Lance's gun relentlessly fired. The worm swiped, tattering the surrounding walls and threatening all three of them. Keith's fingers dug into what they could, and he listened for any signs of distress from Lance.

He seemed to be holding his own.

Until Keith finally reached the top, that is.

Lance was kneeled down in front of the worm who had also lowered in preparation to devour him only five feet away. Gun aimed and head cocked to the side as he prepared his final headshot, Lance was grinning to himself. From Lance's angle, it looked as if he was going in for the kill, but from Keith's, it was obvious the worm was ready to kill Lance even if he went with her last breath.

"Lance!" Keith screamed and tried heaving himself over the edge. "Lance, _move_!"

The worm's tail swung around Lance, and Keith watched in horror as the tail's dagger end stabbed through Lance's left ribs, armor and all. Reflexively, Lance pulled the trigger through his assault, and the worm screeched one last time before jerking its tail out of Lance's frame.

An expulsion of blood flung across the cavern. It was followed by Lance's choke.

Keith tossed his Bayard aside and clumsily forced himself to his feet, sprinting across the cavern.

Lance dropped his gun and stared down at his wound, the worm limp in front of him. Shakily, his hand reached for the blatant hole in his body, and his shock was tangible even to Keith.

Keith skidded to a halt in front of Lance, and he immediately dropped to his knees in front of the man. His hands reached out and firmly pressed against the open wound, but the blood was pouring out, dripping between them in a steaming, near black, stream that made Keith's arms tense. He glanced up and spotted blood draining from the corner of Lance's mouth, and his heart forgot a beat when Lance coughed and the blood sprayed across the inside of his visor.

"Were you even _thinking_?" Keith snapped and ineffectively captured blood in his palms.

Lance shook his head, and he heaved a little. "It was going to kill you. That's all I thought..."

"Shut up," Keith sputtered, and it was only then he realized his shoulders were shaking. "You were doing it because you thought you'd look cool. That's all you care about."

Keith tugged off his own helmet and reached for Lance's bloody helmet to yank it off. He pulled Lance's on and then tried the receiver, but his radio was dead, too.

Without warning, Lance slumped against Keith, blood falling onto Keith's thighs and covering him in diminishing warmth. Keith shuddered and stared through the visor's blood speckles, noting the red, red, red reality of the moment. He pulled off Lance's helmet and set it beside his own before reaching for his teammate. Keith pressed his face against Lance's temple, nose buried in his feathery hair. He reached for Lance's pulse and to get a read.

He was dying.

Keith yelled through gritted teeth and pressed his hand against the wound. He tried to make the gaping injury stop, but he knew there was nothing he could do.

"I care about you," Lance managed after the shortest spell of silence. "Isn't that lame?"

"Don't," Keith warned, but he pulled Lance closer to him and pressed his nose into Lance's jawline.

"I'll never be as cool as you," Lance breathed and weakly attempted to tangle his fingers into the back of Keith's hair, smearing blood along the back of his friend's armor. "Doesn't that suck? Had to love the guy who was so much better than me at everything. Couldn't even be a cool hero. Just tragic and dead."

"You're not dying!" Keith snapped, eyes wide in panic as he fumbled in his pack for one of the lethal defibrillator pens Allura had warned them probably wouldn't work on humans.

It could kill Lance.

Keith understood that much, but Lance was his teammate, his insufferable companion who'd been there with him through so much more than anyone else who wasn't Shiro. They hadn't even known one another before Voltron, but there he was, fighting back tears while gathering whatever blood he could capture in his cupped hands.

They'd kissed once.

Just once.

It'd meant nothing.

_We're on a castle and isolated. It was bound to happen._

_You moaned. You liked it, Keith._

He had.

Keith couldn't deny that he'd liked every second of the kiss, nor could he pretend he hadn't spent days on end dwelling on the moment. His fire had melted Lance and Lance's ice had cooled Keith's disposition enough to make the kiss warm, soft after a moment of hands clawing and bodies pleading. He could still hear the way Lance's spine collided with the aluminum wall, that hard breath when their mouths opened against one another's.

Thinking on it now, he should've let Lance do more to him.

Keith fingered the pen in hand, and he pressed his mouth to the cooling flesh in front of Lance's ear canal. He pretended he wasn't crying, and it was easy to when the tears froze along his eyelashes before they could drip.

"Do you remember when I told you I didn't know who you were?" Keith asked, prompting Lance to stay awake. In the cold, once Lance shut his eyes, Keith knew they'd never open.

"Yeah," Lance murmured, slurring. "When we found Shiro."

Keith sharply rasped through his fight against an enraged cry. He pressed the needle to Lance's throat and prayed to whatever god he'd once been so certain had abandoned him.

"I was lying."

He stabbed the needle in Lance's throat and pressed the button, releasing the toxic concoction. It lit Lance up like a green neon light, and Keith pressed his fingers to Lance's throat and noted his escalating heart rate. Faster and faster it built, and Keith suddenly stood up as if it were his own adrenaline. He reached for Lance's arm and one of his thighs only to hoist him onto his back with a hard grunt.

Keith breathlessly carted Lance toward the icy cavern's deceivingly beautiful interior. His knees were beginning to lock up, but Lance wasn't dead. Keith knew he wouldn't stop until he physically couldn't walk anymore, and that was good enough for him.

After several minutes of bone aching work, Keith heard the familiar sound of a sprinting lion. In the distance, a flash of yellow greeted him, and Keith nearly buckled under the weight of relief.

"Hunk's here," Keith weakly murmured.

Lance shakily lifted a thumb, face buried in Keith's throat for warmth. Keith tried his hardest not to smile, and instead, he softly laughed.

_Kiss me again._

_Not on your life._

 

**vi.**

Keith didn't remember anything afterward.

Not until he woke up with the cryopod draining at his ankles, anyway.

He blinked and cleared his dried throat, wondering if he'd swallowed cotton balls. Keith reached up to groggily rub his eyes only to look down and see someone was seated at the bottom of his pod, staring up at him as if he were drinking in stars that threatened to hurl themselves downward. Keith wobbled his way out of the chamber.

"You almost died," Lance said, words much too flat for Lance's typical attitude. He was seated with one knee upward and the other leg stretched out. Shirtless, his mid-section was entirely wrapped, throat violently bruised.

Keith pressed his palm to his temple and opened his mouth, but he grunted through an immediate headache instead.

"What happened?" he asked and squeezed his eyes shut.

"When you jumped away from Angry Mom Worm you smacked your head against the ice so hard we thought we'd be able to use your brain for a breakfast burrito."

Like an electrical shock, Keith remembered everything.

He dropped to his knees in front of Lance and roughly cupped both sides of Lance's face, tugging him near but then hesitating.

Lance didn't react.

Their mouths hovered close, and he was panting from panic, relief and the residual grief of Lance bleeding out on him. Keith tugged him a centimeter closer, and Lance's hands reached up to clasp onto Keith's wrists as he patiently waited.

"You lied," Lance said, words hot against Keith's lips. His smile slowly unfurled into a smug look, but it was still gentle, tired.

"Should've left you there," Keith muttered.

He melded their mouths before Lance's rising chuckle could make a sound. Keith carded both sets of fingers through Lance's hair, and Lance extended his bent knee so that he could comfortably wrap his arms around Keith's waist, nails suddenly digging into the fabric of Keith's shirt.

Keith sighed, but Lance didn't' seem to mind, his smile growing and growing until he laughed.

After a small suck along Lance's bottom lip, Keith decided he would've done this with him, isolated or not.


End file.
